Do you lock your doors

[Scrambledegghead]

When you’re in the house? So you’ve come in, shut the door behind you and you’re going to be in for at least a few hours. Do you lock it behind you or leave it unlocked because you’re in? We leave ours unlocked and DM has made me promise never to do it again but I can’t get out of the habit! She locks hers when she gets in even if she’ll only be in for 5 minutes before going out again, whereas unless we’re going to bed, ours stayed unlocked.

should I be making more of a conscious effort to lock it, lest a murderer or a burglar comes in or am I in the majority?

Unlocked unless going to bed. You can’t open the door without a key whether it’s locked or not.

I lock mine when I have my grandsons here. They have just managed to reach the door handle so it's safer. I admit I don't routinely lock both front and back doors when I'm in. Maybe I should

Door always locked, two of my neighbours were burgled whilst home.
One came home and got in the shower. Burglar came in and took money from downstairs.
Second neighbour assumed the noises from downstairs were his wife but in fact they had been burgled.

We live semi rural on a quiet street so I never used to. However then we had ds2 who learned to unlock and open the door as soon as he could reach so then it was locked, keys removed and on a high shelf!! To be honest I’d still keep it locked in case sneak thieves came in for the car keys, it’s happened further down in the village. Back doors are locked all the time unless I want them open in summer, if I go upstairs I lock them again if I’m alone.

Either locked or the chain on.

Don’t most doors “lock” anyway when you close them, like a Yale or Chubb?

Front door is always locked. I can't relax at home knowing any random could walk in if they wanted to. The back door tends to be open in the summer though, but the garden is enclosed so unlikely anyone can come in. Burglaries are very common, so I don't understand people who don't lock their doors.

Always lock the front door, leave back door unlocked if going in and out of the garden. I have young children that need to go past the front door to get to the toilet and don't want them opening the door. Before kids the door was locked most of the time but not always.

I always lock as soon as I come in. Gets opened again if the kids go out to play but once they're in for the night then I lock it again. They're 10 and 7 to tend to play on a shared grass area at the front of the house with others so do run in and out quite frequently for drinks/ toilet/ snacks etc.

Just in the habit of doing so, have been broken into before in a previous house...but was in the middle of the night and door was locked then too so can't say it's a past trauma or worry about that.

Our doors are rarely locked day or night to be honest. In my defence someone is normally awake in this household and we have noisy dogs.

@MrsSkylerWhite I've not had a lock like that in years, we had a Yale lock on our Victorian house growing up, but I think every house I've lived in since (and there's been a fair few!) has been composite doors with about 4-5 'locks' up the door that requires the door handle to be push upwards to activate. Probably all the wrong words there but hopefully makes sense!! Even our patio doors have it.

One Saturday night my friend came out of the bath to find a bloke in her sitting room with a bottle of wine he'd brought. He thought he was the first to a party. I don't know who was the more embarrassed. It turned out the party was the same number in the next street along (they do all look the same). She went to the party and had a whale of a time but always locked her front door after that.

Always locked and the keys removed from the door.

I had a fire and security check carried out recently and that was the first thing he asked me, if I kept my doors locked. I always have but left the keys in. He said to remove the keys as burglars use wires to pull keys out of the lock and out through the letterbox.

He was an ex firefighter, the service is also carried out by ex police.

When we lived in London it was always locked, now we live in a rural village we only lock it to let the kids inside / stop them letting the dog out. Back doors never locked and we have sometimes accidentally left the front door unlocked when we’ve gone out. So far nobody’s robbed us!

Always locked now. Caught a stranger coming down my stairs once😬

My door automatically locks if I shut it but I often sit in summer with them open and therefore unlocked. My house is tiny though so no one could sneak in without me seeing them.
Plus I love somewhere safe enough that I have left the house for a whole day before with my door open and it was fine so I am not too nervous

Accidentally left it open! Am not THAT relaxed

My friends elderly aunt always had her front door locked, but you could walk round to the back anyway through the garden, and she was always out pottering in the huge garden with the back door wide open there wasn’t that much point. Until the day the police called unexpectedly.

They had caught a local burglar who was asking for “other crimes to be taken into consideration”. He had identified her house as one he had burgled. The story was he was nosing around in her sitting room having walked in through the back door, when he heard her come into the kitchen, he dived down behind the sofa and hid until about ten minutes later when she had gone back into the garden at which point he scarpered , taking a pile of pound coins from her desk that she was saving for the grandchildren. She never even realised the money had gone let alone that she had been so close to the burglar.

I’ve never lived in a house that you could leave unlocked, always had the yale-type that you need a key to open whenever it’s shut. We deadlock it when we are all out and overnight. If we are in the front of the house we sometimes prop it open to let fresh air in but would shut it before going to the back of the house. Patio doors at the back are open a lot of the time (you have to get over high fences and locked gates to get to the garden from the road) but the rule is if you close them you lock them.

We’ve got a yale lock, but I put the catch down an anyway as I am terrified my toddler would some how get out to the busy road. Partly irrational as she’s always supervised and behind baby gates in the main living area, but I’d never forgive myself if something happened.

I live in a shithole with high crime, but feel a bit safer as I live directly opposite the local shop. I know that one scream and the array of huge blokes who hang around it would come running, I’ve set the smoke alarms off before and opened the front door and have had people knocking to see if we are okay.

We lock both front and back doors automatically as soon as we come in. We've done it ever since we bought the house 26 years ago. It's just a good habit to get into.

The woman across the road doesn't - she also leaves a spare key under a plant pot by the front door. "Because we keep forgetting to take our keys" she says, meaning her and her dippy daughter. Funny thing is, she's the only house on our estate that has been "broken into" several times over the years. I wonder why? She also keeps saying "broken in" when she really means they just walked in or looked under the plant pot for the key, so not really a "break in" at all. She's had all sorts stolen, including handbags, purses, laptops, mobile phones/tablets, etc.

Crazy thing is she never learns and still leaves the door unlocked or a key under the plant pot. Many times, she actually goes out and leaves the front door wide open, i.e. when she walks the dog or goes down to the local shop for bread/milk, etc.

But, of course, it's never her fault - she's one of the "I shouldn't have to take precautions" kind of people.

I live on a main road (market town) and we've had bags stolen from the kitchen because of the back door being left unlocked. A small contact alarm attached to house alarm system sounds whenever the front or back doors open so we can hear that a door has been opened. It doesn't appear to stop the sneak thieves.

My handbag (x 2), carrier bags of shopping and carrier bags of rubbish have been taken at different times. I lock the door behind me but my husband always leaves it unlocked - so I have to check often.

We also have milk stolen from the doorstep and takeaway rubbish left on the drive/front garden. Our ring doorbell doesn't deter either.

My husband's work van has been raided several times on the drive - he ended up renting a secure unit several miles away. He keeps his work equipment and his work van there now.

We slept through our car being attempted to be taken at 3am (bedroom windows were open), several neighbours were up and outside along with police (arrived with sirens blaring) who chased the car thieves up the drive, through our garden and over several fences into neighbours' gardens.

We also had a brand new 6 birth caravan (never even been used, still had plastic coverings inside) stolen from a secure storage facility (along with 4 other caravans which went at the same time). They had trackers and were found in Essex. We did not get the caravan back.

We've been unlucky over the years.

We have a yale so you can't get in without a key. Chubb lock at night or once we know everyone is in for the evening. Back doors are mostly unlocked as ddog is in and out. Locked at night.

I just shut my front door, its composite pvc one so its locked and needs a key to open it from outside but if I want to leave I don't have to unlock it.

Sometimes if I remember i 'double lock it' if that makes sense

It's just me and my dd4 that live in my house. Generally I keep the doors locked, because there's been instances of thieves walking into houses and pinching handbags/wallets in my area. However if I've come home from somewhere and will be heading back out in 20mins I wouldn't always bother. Depends if I'm going upstairs or not.